Einstein’s Theory of Relativity says that time travel is perfectly possible — if you’re going forward.

Finding a way
to travel backwards requires breaking the speed of light, which so far seems impossible. But now, strange-but-
true phenomena such as quantum nonlocality, where particles instantly teleport across vast distances, may give
us a way to make the dream of traveling back and forth through time a reality. Step into a time machine and
rewrite history, bring loved ones back to life, control our destinies.

But if we succeed, what are the consequences of such freedom? Will we get trapped in a plethora of paradoxes
and multiple universes that will destroy the fabric of the universe? Einstein said that nothing travels faster than
the speed of light, but when physicists look at how entangled particles behave, they get stuck in a mirage in
which that tenet appears not to be true.

Physicists don't fully understand entanglement, beyond it being a relationship between particles. If you want to
know what entanglement looks like, pull up a chair to an experiment that has produced it. Researchers at the
University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis and the University of Geneva shone a laser made of photons, the basic units
of light, into the crystal. When the laser's photons hit irregularities in the crystal, single photons sometimes split
into two. These daughter photons were related to one another, and to their parent photon, in how much
energy they had.

You can think of the parent photon as being like a train, and the crystal like many bumps. When the train hit the
bumps, it broke into two chains of cars with related directions and speeds. These daughter photons weren't just
related, but entangled. Particles are entangled if they're related in one property but random in the rest.

Time travel — moving between different points in time — has been a popular topic for science fiction for decades. Franchises
ranging from "Doctor Who" to "Star Trek" to "Back to the Future" have seen humans get in a vehicle of some sort and arrive in
the past or future, ready to take on new adventures. Each come with their own time travel theories.

The reality, however, is more muddled. Not all scientists believe that time travel is possible. Some even say that an attempt
would be fatal to any human who chooses to undertake it.
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Understanding time
What is time? While most people think of time as a constant, physicist Albert Einstein showed that time is an illusion; it is
relative — it can vary for different observers depending on your speed through space. To Einstein, time is the "fourth dimension."
Space is described as a three-dimensional arena, which provides a traveler with coordinates — such as length, width and height
—showing location. Time provides another coordinate — direction — although conventionally, it only moves forward.
(Conversely, a new theory asserts that time is "real.")

Most physicists think time is a subjective illusion, but what if time is real?
(Image: © Shutterstock/Kim D. French)
Einstein's theory of special relativity says that time slows down or speeds up depending on how fast you move relative to
something else. Approaching the speed of light, a person inside a spaceship would age much slower than his twin at home. Also,
under Einstein's theory of general relativity, gravity can bend time.
Picture a four-dimensional fabric called space-time. When anything that has mass sits on that piece of fabric, it causes a dimple
or a bending of space-time. The bending of space-time causes objects to move on a curved path and that curvature of space is
what we know as gravity.
Both the general and special relativity theories have been proven with GPS satellite technology that has very accurate timepieces
on board. The effects of gravity, as well as the satellites' increased speed above the Earth relative to observers on the ground,
make the unadjusted clocks gain 38 microseconds a day. (Engineers make calibrations to account for the difference.)
In a sense, this effect, called time dilation, means astronauts are time travelers, as they return to Earth very, very slightly younger
than their identical twins that remain on the planet.

Through the wormhole

General relativity also provides scenarios that could allow travelers to go back in time, according to NASA. The equations,
however, might be difficult to physically achieve.
One possibility could be to go faster than light, which travels at 186,282 miles per second (299,792 kilometers per second) in a
vacuum. Einstein's equations, though, show that an object at the speed of light would have both infinite mass and a length of 0.
This appears to be physically impossible, although some scientists have extended his equations and said it might be done.
A linked possibility, NASA stated, would be to create "wormholes" between points in space-time. While Einstein's equations
provide for them, they would collapse very quickly and would only be suitable for very small particles. Also, scientists haven't
actually observed these wormholes yet. Also, the technology needed to create a wormhole is far beyond anything we have today.
Can You Time-Travel?
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Alternate time travel theories

While Einstein's theories appear to make time travel difficult, some groups have proposed alternate solutions to jump back and
forth in time.

Infinite cylinder
Astronomer Frank Tipler proposed a mechanism (sometimes known as a Tipler Cylinder) where one would take matter that is 10
times the sun's mass, then roll it into very long but very dense cylinder.
After spinning this up a few billion revolutions per minute, a spaceship nearby — following a very precise spiral around this
cylinder — could get itself on a "closed, time-like curve", according to the Anderson Institute. There are limitations with this
method, however, including the fact that the cylinder needs to be infinitely long for this to work.

An artist's impression of a black hole like the one weighed in this work, sitting in the core of a disk galaxy. The black-hole in NGC4526 weighs 450,000,000 times
more than our own Sun.
(Image: © NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Black holes
Another possibility would be to move a ship rapidly around a black hole, or to artificially create that condition with a huge,
rotating structure.

"Around and around they'd go, experiencing just half the time of everyone far away from the black hole. The ship and its crew
would be traveling through time," physicist Stephen Hawking wrote in the Daily Mail in 2010.
"Imagine they circled the black hole for five of their years. Ten years would pass elsewhere. When they got home, everyone on
Earth would have aged five years more than they had."

However, he added, the crew would need to travel around the speed of light for this to work. Physicist Amos Iron at the
Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel pointed out another limitation if one used a machine: it might fall
apart before being able to rotate that quickly.
Cosmic strings
Another theory for potential time travelers involves something called cosmic strings — narrow tubes of energy stretched across
the entire length of the ever-expanding universe. These thin regions, left over from the early cosmos, are predicted to contain
huge amounts of mass and therefore could warp the space-time around them.
Cosmic strings are either infinite or they’re in loops, with no ends, scientists say. The approach of two such strings parallel to
each other would bend space-time so vigorously and in such a particular configuration that might make time travel possible, in
theory.

Time machines
It is generally understood that traveling forward or back in time would require a device — a time machine — to take you there.
Time machine research often involves bending space-time so far that time lines turn back on themselves to form a loop,
technically known as a "closed time-like curve."

The Doctor's time machine is the TARDIS, which stands for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space.
(Image: © BBCAmerica)
To accomplish this, time machines often are thought to need an exotic form of matter with so-called "negative energy density."
Such exotic matter has bizarre properties, including moving in the opposite direction of normal matter when pushed. Such matter
could theoretically exist, but if it did, it might be present only in quantities too small for the construction of a time machine.

However, time-travel research suggests time machines are possible without exotic matter. The work begins with a doughnut-
shaped hole enveloped within a sphere of normal matter. Inside this doughnut-shaped vacuum, space-time could get bent upon
itself using focused gravitational fields to form a closed time-like curve. To go back in time, a traveler would race around inside
the doughnut, going further back into the past with each lap. This theory has a number of obstacles, however. The gravitational
fields required to make such a closed time-like curve would have to be very strong, and manipulating them would have to be very
precise. [Related: Warp Speed, Scotty? Star Trek's FTL Drive May Actually Work]
Grandfather paradox
Besides the physics problems, time travel may also come with some unique situations. A classic example is the grandfather
paradox, in which a time traveler goes back and kills his parents or his grandfather — the major plot line in the "Terminator"
movies — or otherwise interferes in their relationship — think "Back to the Future" — so that he is never born or his life is
forever altered.

If that were to happen, some physicists say, you would be not be born in one parallel universe but still born in another. Others say
that the photons that make up light prefer self-consistency in timelines, which would interfere with your evil, suicidal plan.
Some scientists disagree with the options mentioned above and say time travel is impossible no matter what your method. The
faster-than-light one in particular drew derision from American Museum of Natural History astrophysicist Charles Lu.

That "simply, mathematically, doesn't work," he said in a past interview with sister site LiveScience.
Also, humans may not be able to withstand time travel at all. Traveling nearly the speed of light would only take a centrifuge,
but that would be lethal, said Jeff Tollaksen, a professor of physics at Chapman University, in 2012.
Using gravity would also be deadly. To experience time dilation, one could stand on a neutron star, but the forces a person would
experience would rip you apart first.
Time travel in fiction
Two 2015 articles by Space.com described different ways in which time travel works in fiction, and the best time-travel machines
ever. Some methods used in fiction include:
One-way travel to the future: The traveler leaves home, but the people he or she left behind might age or be dead by the time
the traveler returns. Examples: "Interstellar" (2014), "Ikarie XB-1" (1963)
Time travel by moving through higher dimensions: In "Interstellar" (2014), there are "tesseracts" available in which astronauts
can travel because the vessel represents time as a dimension of space. A similar concept is expressed in Madeleine L'Engle's "A
Wrinkle In Time" (2018, based on the book series that started in 1963), where time is folded by means of a tesseract. The book,
however, uses supernatural beings to make the travel possible.
Travelling the space-time vortex: The famous "Doctor Who" (1963-present) TARDIS ("Time And Relative Dimension In
Space") uses an extra-dimensional vortex to go through time, while the travelers inside feel time passing normally.
Instantaneous time jumping: Examples include "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" (2006), the DeLorean from "Back To The
Future" (1985), and the Mr. Peabody's WABAC machine from "The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show" (1959-64).
Time travelling while standing still: Both the "Time Machine" (1895 book) and Hermione Granger's Time-Turner from "Harry
Potter" keep the traveler still while they move through time.
Slow time travel: In "Primer" (2004), a traveler stays in a box while time traveling. For each minute they want to go back in
time, they need to stay in the box for a minute. If they want to go back a day in time, they have to stay there for 24 hours.
Traveling faster than light: In "Superman: The Movie" (1979), Superman flies faster than light to go back in time and rescue
Lois Lane before she is killed. The concept was also used in the 1980 novel "Timescape" by Gregory Benford, in which the
protagonist sends (hypothetical) faster-than-light tachyon particles back to Earth in 1962 to warn of disaster. In several "Star
Trek" episodes and movies, the Enterprise travels through time by going faster than light. In the comic book and TV series "The
Flash," the super-speedster uses a cosmic treadmill to travel through time.
Difficult methods to categorize: There's a rocket sled in "Timecop" (1994) that pops in and out of view when it's being used,
which has led to much speculation about what's going on. There's also the Time Displacement Equipment in "The Terminator"
movie series, which shows off how to fight a war in four dimensions (including time).
So is time travel possible?
While time travel does not appear possible — at least, possible in the sense that the humans would survive it — with the physics
that we use today, the field is constantly changing. Advances in quantum theories could perhaps provide some understanding of
how to overcome time travel paradoxes.
 One possibility, although it would not necessarily lead to time travel, is solving the mystery of how certain particles
can communicate instantaneously with each other faster than the speed of light.
In the meantime, however, interested time travelers can at least experience it vicariously through movies, television and books.

Have a news tip, correction or comment? Let us know at

Parallel Universes: Theories & Evidence



Our universe may live in one bubble that is sitting in a network of bubble universes in space.

Is our universe unique? From science fiction to science fact, there is a concept that suggests that there could be other universes
besides our own, where all the choices you made in this life played out in alternate realities. The concept is known as a "parallel
universe," and is a facet of the astronomical theory of the multiverse.
The idea is pervasive in comic books, video games, television and movies. Franchises ranging from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"
to "Star Trek" to "Doctor Who" to "Digemon" use the idea to extend plotlines. (A fuller list of parallel universes in fiction is at
the bottom of the article.)

There actually is quite a bit of evidence out there for a multiverse. First, it is useful to understand how our universe is believed to
have come to be.

Arguing for a multiverse

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Around 13.7 billion years ago, simply speaking, everything we know of in the cosmos was an infinitesimal singularity. Then,
according to the Big Bang theory, some unknown trigger caused it to expand and inflate in three-dimensional space. As the
immense energy of this initial expansion cooled, light began to shine through. Eventually, the small particles began to form into
the larger pieces of matter we know today, such as galaxies, stars and planets.
One big question with this theory is: are we the only universe out there? With our current technology, we are limited to
observations within this universe because the universe is curved and we are inside the fishbowl, unable to see the outside of it (if
there is an outside.)

There are at least five theories why a multiverse is possible, as a 2012 Space.com article explained:
1. Infinite universes. We don't know what the shape of space-time is exactly. One prominent theory is that it is flat and goes on
forever. This would present the possibility of many universes being out there. But with that topic in mind, it's possible that
universes can start repeating themselves. That's because particles can only be put together in so many ways. More about that in a
moment.
2. Bubble universes. Another theory for multiple universes comes from "eternal inflation." Based on research from Tufts
University cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin, when looking at space-time as a whole, some areas of space stop inflating like the
Big Bang inflated our own universe. Others, however, will keep getting larger. So if we picture our own universe as a bubble, it is
sitting in a network of bubble universes of space. What's interesting about this theory is the other universes could have very
different laws of physics than our own, since they are not linked.
3. Daughter universes. Or perhaps multiple universes can follow the theory of quantum mechanics (how subatomic particles
behave), as part of the "daughter universe" theory. If you follow the laws of probability, it suggests that for every outcome that
could come from one of your decisions, there would be a range of universes — each of which saw one outcome come to be. So in
one universe, you took that job to China. In another, perhaps you were on your way and your plane landed somewhere different,
and you decided to stay. And so on.
4. Mathematical universes. Another possible avenue is exploring mathematical universes, which, simply put, explain that the
structure of mathematics may change depending in which universe you reside. "A mathematical structure is something that you
can describe in a way that's completely independent of human baggage," said theory-proposer Max Tegmark of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as quoted in the 2012 article. "I really believe that there is this universe out there that can
exist independently of me that would continue to exist even if there were no humans."
5. Parallel universes. And last but not least as the idea of parallel universes. Going back to the idea that space-time is flat, the
number of possible particle configurations in multiple universes would be limited to 10^10^122 distinct possibilities, to be exact.
So, with an infinite number of cosmic patches, the particle arrangements within them must repeat — infinitely many times over.
This means there are infinitely many "parallel universes": cosmic patches exactly the same as ours (containing someone exactly
like you), as well as patches that differ by just one particle's position, patches that differ by two particles' positions, and so on
down to patches that are totally different from ours.
Famously, physicist's Stephen Hawking's last paper before his death also dealt with the multiverse. The paper was published in
May 2018, just a few months after Hawking's demise. About the theory, he told Cambridge University in an interview published
in The Washington Post, "We are not down to a single, unique universe, but our findings imply a significant reduction of the
multiverse to a much smaller range of possible universes."
Arguing against a parallel universe

Parallel universe theories suggest their are infinite Earth's out there, just a bit different from ours.

Not everyone agrees with the parallel universe theory, however. A 2015 article on Medium by astrophysicist Ethan Siegal agreed
that space-time could go on forever in theory, but said that there are some limitations with that idea.
The key problem is the universe is just under 14 billion years old. So our universe's age itself is obviously not infinite, but a finite
amount. This would (simply put) limit the number of possibilities for particles to rearrange themselves, and sadly make it less
possible that your alternate self did get on that plane after all to see China.

Also, the expansion at the beginning of the universe took place exponentially because there was so much "energy inherent to
space itself," he said. But over time, that inflation obviously slowed — those particles of matter created at the Big Bang are not
continuing to expand, he pointed out. Among his conclusions: that means that multiverses would have different rates of inflation
and different times (longer or shorter) for inflation. This decreases the possibilities of universes similar to our own.

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"Even setting aside issues that there may be an infinite number of possible values for fundamental constants, particles and
interactions, and even setting aside interpretation issues such as whether the many-worlds-interpretation actually describes our
physical reality," Siegal said, "the fact of the matter is that the number of possible outcomes rises so quickly — so much faster
than merely exponentially — that unless inflation has been occurring for a truly infinite amount of time, there are no parallel
universes identical to this one."
But rather than seeing this lack of other universes as a limitation, Siegal instead takes the philosophy that it shows how important
it is to celebrate being unique. He advises to make the choices that work for you, which "leave you with no regrets." That's
because there are no other realities where the choices of your dream self play out; you, therefore, are the only person that can
make those choices happen.